Watch this astronaut chat with a talking robot in space

By Emily Wang, Associated Press

Posted:
12/20/2013 03:25:52 PM CST

If life in space ever gets lonely, astronauts aboard the International Space Station have something new to talk to.

A new video shows the first humanoid robot in space making small talk with a Japanese astronaut. In footage released by the robot's developers Friday, the robot Kirobo performs its first mission on the station — talking in Japanese with astronaut Koichi Wakata to test its conversation function.

Wakata says he's glad to meet Kirobo, and asks the robotic companion how it feels about being in a zero-gravity environment.

“I'm used to it now, no problem at all,” Kirobo quips.

Kirobo is programmed to process questions and select words from its vocabulary to form an answer, instead of giving pre-programmed responses to specific questions.